We recently connected with Aidan Paul Leonardo Bacan and have shared our conversation below.
Aidan Paul, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business
Hey there! We are Aidan Paul and Leo Bacan of Cat Daddy. Leo and I recently returned from Malmö, Sweden to successfully produce our latest song, “Disco Love” with Amir Aly as lead track on our upcoming release album ‘Omens’ (Releasing later in Spring 2023). Disco Love is an exciting two-year journey that has become some of our best work to date. We were fortunate to get Mattias Bylund, premier horns arranger for Justin Timberlake, who provided a slamming hot, kicking, tight, horn section, adding a whole new element to this upbeat dance track. We would work for about 8 hours straight, then would venture out into the night of Malmö to meet some old friends and make some new ones. For the latter half of our journey, Leo and I traveled over to Copenhagen to experience the live music and culture there. We ended up missing our over-night train to Stockholm because our bags got locked in the storage room (classic noob-traveler mistake). Luckily we had a good state of mind, and we appreciated every aspect of the trip, including the set-backs and harsh life-lessons. All in all, that was the best most expensive trip of our lives… And we would do it again in a heart beat!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Aidan & Leo have been writing and producing music together for about two years now, and their intention has and will always be to create music that is true to them so that they can attract listeners who are like them. Choosing the path of authenticity is often more difficult than going with the status quo, but they know the rewards far outweigh superficial gratification. That is the message Cat Daddy strives to convey. Aidan grew up in a family of musicians, and studied music theatre throughout high school and college. He is a visionary obsessed with all forms of expression and performance. Today He splits his time between performing as a resident artist at The Moon in Wynwood Miami, and producing music with Leo. Leo was introduced to music by his dad at a young age with a $100 guitar. That relationship soon evolved into a family band in their garage, and eventually Leo found himself as a member of his first real band- House Without A Ceiling. They released two albums before Miami was hit with the Pandemic shut-down. But it is a blessing in disguise, because that is when Leo and Aidan started their musical relationship.
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
As musicians, the term “clients” can take a few different forms. In terms of sharing our music, the best tool for exposure we have utilized to gain exposure has been social media, specifically instagram. This platform serves as our portfolio, our networker and our resume! When it comes to collaborating with other artists, the best way for us to find and work with people is through word-of-mouth recommendations. Being a musician my entire life, I have grown quite an extensive community of artists that I trust; so if we need a violations, a saxophone player, or any specialty that we are dying to have be a part of our track, it is not too difficult to search our pool of options and eventually find someone. Then there are the “gigging” clients. For those it is especially good to have some sort of connection because it is relatively difficult to get into a venue without references. Why should they trust you? Sometimes a killer video is just not enough. So we like to go support our friends who play live and connect with event planners or managers who may be willing to give us an opportunity.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Leo and I can talk endlessly on the importance of patience. We had been working on our track Disco Love for two years after we decided to take the song in a new direction, and invest even MORE time and money into it. The decision left us broke, but we didn’t care because we knew we acted in the song’s best interest. In this competitive world, it is too easy to cut corners, kiss ass, and share art that is not ready to be shared- all in an attempt to get ahead or chase the illusion of success- but that is how artists burn out. One should never rush their art. Always remember why you started creating in the first place.
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